Levine wins state bar election

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Steven Levine

Steven Levine says he believes his victory in the race for president-elect of the State Bar of Wisconsin is a sign of the long-term change in the works for the organization of the state’s 21,000 lawyers. Notably, if he has his way, all of those lawyers will have the choice as to whether they wish to be members of the State Bar.

Levine, of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in Madison, entered the race via petition last December, rather than via nomination by a bar committee, the usual mode of selection for bar officers. He narrowly defeated Dean R. Dietrich of Ruder Ware in Wausau, the bar’s treasurer; Levine garnered 2,382 votes to Dietrich’s 2,185 votes. Coming in third was G. Jeffrey George, of Meyer Ltd. in La Crosse, with 1,352 votes. He is the first petition candidate to win the president-elect spot in over 25 years.

Levine ran primarily on a platform of making bar membership voluntary, although eliminating the association’s public relations campaign and re-examining the policies and procedures of the state’s Board of Bar Examiners were two other central themes of his campaign.

But, he cautions, "I’ve told people who are long-term bar conservatives that I’m not nearly as radical as they might think I am, and those who are a little more on the radical side, that I am not quite as ready to slash and burn as they might think I am."

He adds that he enjoys an excellent relationship with the bar staff, and looks forward to working more closely with them over the next three years.

Levine will take office on July 1. He says his first few months will be spent listening and learning — although he does plan to initiate some sort of effort to look at a return to the voluntary bar as his top priority.

He is not entirely certain how to best accomplish that goal, and therefore some study will be necessary. Levine hypothesizes that, if a majority of the Board of Governors wanted the bar to change to a voluntary organization, a petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to do so might not be necessary.

The mandatory bar is a "sacred cow" to some bar members, he opines, but new lawyers would likely welcome the change — a move he says will strengthen the bar and make it less of a "servant" to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. "As long as the bar is mandatory, it can never be as strong as it could be. There will always be the concern that the bar cannot be as forthright as it would like to be, because we have to worry about upsetting the high court," he says.

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Levine learned of his victory late last Friday. His first response was one of shock, followed almost immediately by sending e-mails to Dietrich and George, to thank them for a fine, issues-oriented race, and for their many years of bar service.

During a telephone interview Sunday, he told the Wisconsin Law Journal, "If my election stands for anything, it’s that if you get organized and are willing to put in the work, you can succeed. I’m hoping my election will maybe inspire bar members out there, who don’t usually get involved in the bar, to run for the Board of Governors.

Get out there, and work for change."